The control bar can currently only be used by the mouse (or touch) as all keyboard input is currently sent in to the session at all time. Upstream has provided a bunch of commits to fix this though, e.g.: https://github.com/novnc/noVNC/commit/2afda54456fc45b1d343cc4b7e8edada9b71b088 See it and subsequent commits for details.
It seems this change causes a regression though; clicking the "Ctrl" extra key and then typing something no longer works. You have to click in the session for focus to move back there so you can continue typing. Tested with Firefox on Linux. Unsure how it work with virtual keyboards.
I made a proposal for a fix upstream: https://github.com/novnc/noVNC/pull/1312
Fixed now. The focus is now given to the canvas after clicking any of the extra keys. The controlbar is also faded when this happens in order to highlight the move of focus. However, if using a regular mouse this will be difficult to spot since moving out of the extra keys section of the controlbar will remove this fade-out effect. This effect is best tested on touch devices.
Tested this and found one bug. The virtual keyboard on Android and iOS closes when clicking on one of the extra keys from the toolbar. The focus will shift to the canvas, hence closing the on-screen keyboard.
Fixed upstream: https://github.com/novnc/noVNC/commit/94a01b0ae0b735c2da794e7870bf972a68fece69
(In reply to comment #5) > The virtual keyboard on Android and iOS closes when clicking on one of the > extra keys from the toolbar. The focus will shift to the canvas, hence closing > the on-screen keyboard. Tested with build 7389 to reproduce this issue on: *Android 8 - Chrome 78 This build had the same problem. Also tested after the latest vendordrop (Build 6286) on: *Android 8 - Chrome 78 and Firefox 68 *Fedora 30 - Chrome 78 This issue is now fixed and the navigation of control bar using keyboard still works as intended.